destruction/disposal of old HDD

What's the best way to destroy a 2.5" SATA drive (going on 4 years old if that makes any difference) before disposing of it to undoubtedly prevent any possibility of data recovery? Should I just smash it with a sledgehammer until it's in bits and pieces? That seems simpler and more effective than drilling holes in it.

I assume that running a disk wipe utility on it beforehand is unnecessary/pointless, right?

Once destroyed, can I just throw it away (is it safe and legal given the materials?), or should it be recycled somehow (and if so, how)? Recycling may be difficult if it has been smashed into pieces...

Sledgehammer works fine to a point, but you need to make sure that actual disk inside is scrap & the best way to do that is remove the (usually 6) small small hex screws that hold the top on and then prise it away, this gives you access to the actual disk which you can then destroy.

Okay. So I simply remove the top as described and then smash it with a sledgehammer, or do I need to remove the discs (and if so, how do I do it)? Once finished, is it safe and legal to just throw everything away, or given the materials in the drive, does everything need to be recycled?

Thanks. The platter appears easy to identify; will it be easy to remove and destroy once the top is removed? Is there any chance that anyone who finds the smashed pieces of the platter can reassemble it and thus recover my data?

Any idea how I can find more information about my local laws on safe disposal?

Also, if I'm going to be destroying my drive like this, it's pointless to run a data wiping utility beforehand, right?

Open her up, and beat the platters to death with a hammer. There is nothing toxic inside, so take it to anywhere that recycles metal. Or bury it in the yard.
p.s., make sure to wear a tin foil foil hat when you do it.

It would only be recoverable if at all with thousands of pounds of forensic kit. But on the safe side if your data is that important then you can run a data wiping utility, or just encrypt it, then nobody is getting on.

So if I encrypt the drive with BitLocker and then smash it, there's absolutely no chance of recovery? It won't really be any more secure if I use a data wiping utility? I'm just trying to figure out if there's any point to using such a utility if I'm smashing the drive anyway, as I'd rather not have to download and run one, but I want my drive to be totally irrecoverable (or as close to that as possible).

I thought that destroying your drive was the only way to make your data truly irrecoverable, meaning that using a data wiping utility before smashing it would be excessive and pointless.

Have an HDD smashing party. Ask all your friends to bring along their biggest hammer, angle grinder, pickaxe, whatever. Make an afternoon of it. Do have a prize for the one with the biggest tool. (or the best explosive)

Me thinks we are over dramatizing what is really a simple problem. If the drive is wiped miscreants will simply move on to a drive that is easier to do, unless you really have some individual determined to get your specific information.